Let the festivities begin!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Mine was a wonder. I got to just zen out in my kitchen with a very patient sous chef, and stuff myself sick. We’re still dealing with leftovers five days later. I have absolutely zero estimation skills. I cook every meal as if I’m cooking a banquet feast.

Since then I’ve been running around getting Christmas up, which is quite a job around here, as you’ll see throughout the month. I just sat down and made a list of everything I wanted to share, and I have enough to go for two months of posts. So I have my work cut out for me, and lots of pretty Christmas sights to show you.

I thought it would only be appropriate to start the month off with a few glimpses of one of our Christmas collections: Advent Calendars.

The combination of a beautiful display, and counting, well, that was just custom made for an obsessive compulsive craft artist. It’s just the most logical thing in the world that I should love these so much.

Ever since I was a kid I counted down for every major event in my life. I distinctly remember the first time someone introduced the concept of a paper chain to me, and the process of taking off a link every day. I was in kindergarten and we were all waiting for Christmas break to come. That moment was like the first time someone put a golf club in the hands of Tiger Woods. It just fit with me.

I never let go of the paper chain making. I remember as a teenager I linked my hairbands together to countdown until summer vacation. In college I made a paper chain that ringed my apartment counting down until my wedding day.

Now I’ve got so many that I have trouble keeping up with them. I find myself binging on candy I forgot about at the end of every week. It’s become much more about the symbol of the thing now than the actual count.

At last count I had 13. Most of them are similar to this fancy one up above, a series of doors to open waiting to be filled with a prize inside. I told myself no more of that style, and then I found a bunch of particularly wonderful ones that I couldn’t pass up. My very favorite style are the hardest to find: calendars that require an action. An ornament to hang on a tree, a figurine to bring out and display, those are the ones I’m searching for. Because heaven knows I do not need to be eating 13 dark chocolate lindor balls every day.